I Have A Cunning Plan
by Dinogeek
Summary: Now sit down and hush up, little ones, 'cause I've got a story to tell you. It's about Toby the elf. Toby the elf has a plan. / Fluffy and slightly cracky, written like a verbal story. Happy Friday.


**A/N: My brain spat this out and I have no idea where it came from. I decided to try a story-telling type format and use present tense so I'd love some feedback as to whether or not it worked. :) I love the elves, can I just say that? They're adorable and cheerful and I got the impression that they are, as we say in the South, touched in the head. So when my brain decided to make a funny, it decided to use the elves. Because Happy Friday.  
**

* * *

Toby is actually rather cunning, as the elves go. Honestly that isn't saying much but he'll take it as a compliment anyways. Toby has learned the art of cunning (to the extent that he can) from none other than Jack Frost himself, and it is said winter spirit that he is now attempting to impress. He has a plan- a rather brilliant one, if he might say so himself- but the trouble is, he also needs some help.

Elves are rather small, as you may know. They are only about two feet tall, hardly even coming up to most people's knees, and for Toby's masterfully tricky plan to work, well, there is something of a height requirement. But how to get the other elves to help him…? That is a very good question, one to which Toby is still trying to find the answer.

He doesn't want to spoil his lovely cunning plan by letting all the other blabbermouths run around and tell North about it, no, that just won't do at all. So he'll have to come up with a way to distract them. Toby's ever-cunning little mind settles on North's rule number one, the rule that no one's stupid enough to break twice: do not feed the elves.

Ever.

At all.

Toby's face lights up with a manic smile and his eyes get all bright and suddenly he knows _exactly _what he's got to do. But he needs some tools. North has anticipated everything the elves could pull, you see. He knows how tall they are and how many can stack up on each other's shoulders (Toby tried that just the other day, but the one who was meant to be number three only ended up pulling number two down onto number one) and he has his counter tops set up so that they can't get to the blessed sugar that waits above.

As you might imagine, elves absolutely, positively love sugar, even more than they love decorating things and inventing toys, which quite frankly is saying something. And they will do anything to get to it. So Toby knows he's going to have to stretch his devious little mind to its fullest extent to get his hands onto those cookies. First he tries jumping- not up (he's tried that before) but across. He scrabbles his way up the shelves until he can turn around and see the counter top and then he reaches for the skies.

And misses by a wide margin. Yet another well-known fact about elves is that they what you might call aerodynamically inefficient: basically, they drop like a two foot tall rock with a bell on top. So you have to be real careful when the elves threaten to help you with something involving heights; they can do some damage when they build up momentum. Fortunately, all poor Toby sustains from his perfunctory flight is a very loudly ringing bell, in more than one sense. It is now that the thought occurs to Toby that maybe he should try something else. So he walks off, his feet doing their best impression of a straight line, and comes up with Plan… X-ish. He's lost count, really. He was counting on his fingers but then he forgot how many times he's used each hand.

So, with Plan A Lot in the works, Toby smiles sedately, hardly even noticing when he sends another elf rolling down the stairs like a conical slinky. Unfortunately for our resident hero, the other elf latches onto him and so a few seconds later Toby rolls up against a fan and once his bell has stopped ringing again he has the most cunning little thought his cunning little brain can produce: he'll fly to the cookies.

It's absolutely foolproof- at least, he thinks it is. So he sneaks along to the workshop and do you know what he does? He steals himself a little desk fan (well, he thinks 'steal' is such a harsh word. After all, he'll be giving it back. Eventually) and drags it all the way to the kitchen. That's a long way for somebody as small as Toby to get, and by the time he's finished he's rather proud of himself, if he may say so; and if you were to ask him he certainly would. He knows that fans send air out because he's seen them lift up papers and then North starts saying rude words when the papers go out the window and he reckons it's the same principle with elves.

So with great determination, he plugs the fan in, turns it over, and hops up on top. But he's not flying. The fan is working, he knows, because he can hear the air and feel the air but it's not lifting him up. Well, this is a setback, isn't it? So, standing back in square one but still thoroughly indefatigable, Toby decides to try a new method. He flips the fan over so that the air is moving up towards the ceiling and then hops on again. Well, he thinks he feels a little something, but not enough, so he turns the speed up and victory!

Toby has finally discovered the secret to making elves fly. I know you're probably wondering how on earth that works, so bear with me and I'll explain: the trick is in the cone, you see. It's really quite simple. If you want an elf to fly, you simply fill his cone up with air and eventually he'll achieve liftoff. It's the same trick they use with hot air balloons, only Toby doesn't know where to get hot fan air from so this'll have to do for now. He waves his little arms in the air and that's when he discovers the next important thing about flying: stability is very, very important.

After getting his bell rung both literally and figuratively for the third time that day, Toby straightens his cone and jumps back on, utterly determined to succeed. Slowly, carefully, he floats up to the table and then realizes that he needs to be a little closer. So, Toby flops back to earth and pushes the fan up until it's right in line with counter top and hopes with all his heart that the expression "third time's the charm" is actually true. He floats so close he can practically taste it (yeah, the yetis put a lot of sugar in their cookies) and latches onto the side of the table like a lamprey latching onto the back of a shark. After a couple minutes' worth of hassle, he's managed to swing himself up onto the counter.

Toby is a happy elf, let me tell you. He's the first elf that's ever flown outside of the sleigh, his brilliantly cunning plan is off to a great start, he's only fallen down the stairs once today, and now he has a whole table's worth of cookies at his disposal. With some difficulty, he resists the urge to bury his face in the plates and transfers his loot to the floor piece by piece before hopping back into his own personal jet stream. Now, Toby may be bright as elves go, but let's be honest- you and I both know that's not saying a whole lot. He has yet to grasp the rather crucial ability to land, instead resorting to his method of popping out of the air and simply dropping onto his bottom. But he doesn't care; now that his plan is in motion he has no time to work on landing. He has cookies to distribute! After he's scrambled back up he collects his prizes and sets off to hand them out.

The moment he hits the workshop he's swarmed. The other elves don't know what Toby is up to and once they're all on sugar highs for the ages they don't care. They swarm the workshop, climbing the walls and jumping on everything and licking whatever doesn't get out of the way fast enough while Toby cheers in triumph. Now he can continue with his plan! All he has to do is- oh. Oh goodness. Toby realizes that he's made one teensy-weensy little mistake. He's forgotten what the rest of the plan is. Toby's had more than a few cookies himself, and it may not surprise you to learn that elves have a short attention span, so they can only focus on one thing at a time.

No, no, he has to focus so he can remember what his great plan was. One cookie later, Toby realizes it's no use and two cookies after that, he doesn't even care. Squealing with the delight that only sugar can bring, he rolls down the stairs and shows the other elves how to float and finds out that Phil doesn't like it even a little tiny bit when you lick the back of his knee. Soon, he hears North come out of his study, yelling "Who gave cookies to elves?!" and he cackles and runs off to find Jack and tell him the good news. He finds the winter spirit and jumps up and down happily and eventually gets his point across. He's over the moon when Jack gives him a high five and a wicked grin, and soon in addition to the present chaos the elves have several ice slides that Toby is almost certain didn't exist five minutes ago. Not that he can really remember, though.

Now usually this is the bit where I wrap up the story and tell you what the moral is and all that. I wasn't originally going to put a moral in this story, but I figured I might as well tack one on to the end because hey, it's not like it'll hurt anything will it? It doesn't really need a moral, though. Think about it, Toby's ecstatic, the elves are happy, Jack is impressed, and North- well, North will start laughing eventually. He always does, after all. Why spoil all that with some sort of deep-thinking lesson on life or the universe or whatever? But then, it is tradition to have a moral at the end of the story, so here's the moral for this one: even if you don't feed the elves, they'll find a way to eat. Basically what I'm saying is, go ahead and give them those cookies. At least that way you get to be a part of the chaos. And that's good fun. Just ask Toby (once he's done sliding, that is).


End file.
